This invention relates to a method of making an ornamental plastic article and more particularly a method of making an ornamental flat plastic article that is smooth on one surface and rough on the opposite surface which contains the design of the article in different colored plastic pellets or beads.
In the prior art, especially two of my earlier patents such as U.S. Pat. No. 2,761,177 issued Sept. 4, 1956 and U.S. Pat. No. 3,523,031 issued Aug. 4, 1970, methods were described in which plastic sheets were formed having varied colored plastic material fused together to form a sheet. Other methods fused toghether varied colored particles or pellets of plastic material leveled to form a vari-colored plastic sheet. With these prior art methods, while producing varied colored sheets and articles, it was ordinarily impossible to repetitively duplicate the coloring effect and often times only close approximation of desired colored effect were obtained. In my '031 U.S. Pat. No. 3,523,031, I disclosed a method for obtaining a reproducible design by using a sheet containing an underlying design and then placing a layer of plastic material over the sheet and then the plastic pellets were affixed to the powder by heat. This method produced a reproducible design in an easy simpe manner, but it was very difficult to produce articles having a distinctive outer configuration, and interior design such as animals, snownman, wall plaques and the like. Making ornamental plastic sheets and articles by the prior art methods was considered an art with respect to obtaining the desired coloring or ornamental effect, since it depended to a great deal on the skill of the individual worker in applying different colored pellets to different areas on the article or plastic sheet. While these plastic sheets and articles made from prior art methods were satisfactory from a technical standpoint, oftentimes they were not especially realistic in appearance since they depended upon the worker's skill in distributing the colored plastic granular pellets. It was difficult, if not impossible, to repetitively produce multiple colored designs in the plastic sheets, such as animals, flowers, figures, scenes or art works.